Revival Prologue: Paradox
by MyAibou
Summary: After the Ceremonial Battle, Yugi and Téa cope with their loss before they all graduate high school and go their separate ways... End of series spoilers. YxT. Edited to fix the Pharaoh's name. Blame Lucidscreamer.
1. The Confession

**REVIVAL**

**PROLOGUE: PARADOX**

**Summary:** After the Ceremonial Battle, Yugi and Téa cope with their loss before they all graduate high school and go their separate ways. But for Yugi, being "only one Yugi Mutou on the world" is more complicated than any of them could have imagined. **End of series spoilers.** YugixTéa. (JoeyxMai will come up later)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Yu-gi-oh_ or its characters; Kazuki Takahashi does. I'm just taking them for a joy ride. I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**Rating:** T for mild language, violence, suggestive content. (Actually, this prologue is K+ at most, but since the rest of the story is T, I marked this T for consistency.)

**A word about continuity (such as it is):** This story mostly follows the dubbed American Kids WB version because that's what I watch with my kids. So sue me. ;) That said, whenever it suits my purposes, I borrow from the original Japanese version (gleaned from episode guides on the brilliant _Yu-Jyo_ site, _Janime_, and _False Memories_ – e-mail me if you want the links) or the manga. For example, Yugi and Téa were childhood friends, as in the manga, even though in the American version a flashback shows Yugi and Joey deciding they should get to know her after the boys are already friends. Basically, wherever there is a conflict between the American, Japanese, and manga, I go with whatever I like best. :) Events referred to that have not yet aired in the U.S. (some of the Memory World/Dawn of the Duel arc) I got from _Janime _and_ False Memories. _

* * *

**1. The Confession**

_After the Ceremonial Battle_

Duel Monsters is a game. In ancient times, it was a game of princes and sorcerers, a Shadow Game of power, its champion a Pharaoh of Egypt. Now it is just a card game, and its champion just a boy.

Only… for the better part of three years, it wasn't just a game and he wasn't just a boy. He was the one who had solved the Millennium Puzzle and brought back the spirit of the ancient Pharaoh of Egypt who had reigned thousands of years before, the King of Games, who shared his body and lived with him as one. Together with their friends, they had many adventures and fought against those who would bring back the Shadow Games to steal people's souls and gain power for themselves. Their last adventure ended in Egypt, a Ceremonial Battle between the two of them, the Pharaoh and the boy. It was a battle not of enemies, but of brothers; a battle of love. When the boy defeated the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh went on to the spirit world where he belonged and the boy was left where he belonged, with the living. The Millennium Puzzle and the six other Millennium Items were lost in a chasm buried beneath the ruins of an ancient temple, their purpose fulfilled.

His story was no longer the story of an ancient Pharaoh, but of a boy at the threshold between childhood and adulthood. The age of the Shadow Games had ended. Duel Monsters was just a game, its champion just a boy—a young man now. With the Puzzle gone, he and his friends believed, his life would be ordinary once more. After all, he'd only been extraordinary because he'd solved the Puzzle.

As it turned out, they'd gotten it backwards. He'd only solved the Puzzle because he was extraordinary.

**

* * *

**

It had been a week since they'd returned from Egypt. He'd expected it to be hard, for everything to be different, for the hole in his heart to be gaping, impossible to fill, but to his surprise, he didn't feel that way at all. He felt… the same. He didn't understand the sameness; after three years of sharing his body with his other self, the ancient spirit of the Pharaoh—_Atem, _he reminded himself, _his name is Atem—_he'd expected his absence to feel so _different, _so lonely. But he felt the same. _You aren't anyone but yourself, _Atem had told him before he left._ There is only one Yugi Mutou in the world. _It had sounded so lonely at the time, but truth be told, the absence of the Millennium Puzzle was harder to get used to than the absence of the spirit who came from it. Every morning he still reached for it and was surprised when he didn't find it hanging from his bedpost. Everywhere he went he felt almost naked without its familiar weight hanging from a thick chain around his neck. It was a little disconcerting that he felt the Puzzle's absence more than the Pharaoh's. Not that he didn't miss Atem, because he did. Not an hour went by when he didn't think of him or wish they could talk or he could ask for advice, especially when playing Duel Monsters, where he was most used to taking a backseat to the Pharaoh. But even dueling didn't feel all that different. There was no hole in his heart.

At least not because of Atem.

"Just the guys again, huh?" Tristan said, banging his lunch tray onto the cafeteria table and grimacing at its contents. "Téa still avoiding us?" He sat down, then nearly jumped up again when he got what Yugi guessed was supposed to be a furtive kick in the shins under the table from Joey. "What?" Tristan cried out, glaring at his friend, then noticed Yugi pushing his food around his tray and snapped his mouth closed.

Yugi rolled his eyes. Joey meant well, but subtlety was not his strong suit and Yugi didn't need to be babied. He knew at barely five feet tall he was diminutive and now Pharaoh-less, but he wasn't a child. "It's not _us _she's avoiding," he said, his attempt at nonchalance sounding pathetic even to his own ears.

Joey sighed, brushing hair out of his eyes. "Yuge, it isn't _you._"

"I know."

"It's just weird," Joey continued. "For all of us. But especially for her. I think… I dunno," Joey shrugged at the futility of trying to explain the complex relationship the others had to the Pharaoh they'd simply known as the other Yugi.

Yugi pushed his tray away and folded his arms, looking down at the table. "Its not my fault he had to leave and it's not my fault everyone sees him when they look at me. Or me when they looked at him. Or whatever. I didn't ask for any of this. And she was _my _friend first," he finished, cringing at how immature he sounded. So much for not being a child.

"We know," Tristan chimed in, trying to be helpful. "She just needs a little time, that's all."

"I know, I get that," Yugi replied, feeling a little bad for having been so churlish. He looked up at his friends. "It's just that graduation is just a couple months away, and then she's off to New York to dance, I'm off to Cairo to study with Professor Hawkins, Tristan's off to the army—"

"And I'm going nowhere," Joey finished, taking his turn in the self-pity pool.

Yugi sighed. The last thing he'd wanted was for his best friend to get down on himself. "You have no idea how grateful Grandpa is that you'll be working at the game shop. He'll need the help once I leave. And you're going to clean up on the dueling circuit," he said.

"Won't be the same without you," Joey replied flatly.

"Hey, stop making it sound like the gang's splitting up," Tristan put in. "Just because we won't see each other every day doesn't mean we aren't still together where it counts." He balled his right hand into a fist and patted his chest with it for emphasis, then held his hand up to his face, showing them its back.

There was no longer any ink on Tristan's hand, obviously, but Yugi could still almost see the mark Téa had drawn there nearly three years ago, and could almost feel the one on his own hand as well. She'd drawn a happy face across their four hands combined to symbolize their friendship bond. Typical Téa, but they'd long ago stopped thinking of it as stupid or girlish because the bond it had created was very real and alive in all of them. Distance would not change that, and they all knew it, though that did little to lessen the sense of loss he felt at the thought of all of them going their separate ways after graduation. That and thinking about the happy face mark only served to bring his thoughts back to Téa and he felt her current absence anew.

"Maybe I should talk to her," he mused.

"Just give her time," Tristan said again, putting his hand down and reaching for his spoon. But with graduation and Cairo and New York looming, Yugi didn't feel like he had much time to give her.

**

* * *

**

As the school day progressed, Yugi saw Téa only briefly, in the hallway between classes, never anywhere he could actually approach her and talk to her. After school he looked for her, but she'd disappeared. He weighed Tristan's advice to give her time against his own sense of urgency to spend as much time as he could with his friends—all of them—before graduation and found himself heading away from the game shop where he lived in an upstairs apartment with his grandfather and towards Téa's house. His natural inclination, or at least what would have been his natural inclination in the days before the Millennium Puzzle and the Pharaoh had come into his life, was to let things lie and let others come to him of their own volition. Though quiet and introverted by nature, his three years coexisting with the more gregarious Pharaoh had made him a little more bold and he simply didn't want to waste any more of their precious time giving her space to grieve Atem without having to see him every time she looked at Yugi.

Téa was Yugi's oldest friend; his only friend for years when everyone else saw him as a strange loner whose only interests were games and puzzles, back when Joey and Tristan were petty bullies who liked to torment him, back when there was no Pharaoh and the Millennium Puzzle had yet to be solved. She was really the only person who had known him before the Pharaoh had changed him forever. She'd been the one to first recognize that Yugi sometimes seemed to act like a different person. She'd been the one to remind him of who he was and what he valued when the Pharaoh's highly competitive streak came out a little too forcefully, the one to see him as he truly was. It was, perhaps then, a little ironic that she out of all of them would grow to care for Atem as a person separate from Yugi. Well, okay, maybe not _that _ironic. Atem was, after all, everything Yugi was not. Fearless, outgoing, charming, charismatic, a born leader. And Téa was, well, a girl. Yugi at seventeen years old had never so much as had a girl look at him twice, unless you counted Professor Hawkins's granddaughter, Rebecca, and Yugi certainly did not count her, seeing as she was only eleven and her childish crush on him was mortifying. He also didn't count Vivian Wong, the slightly crazy Chinese duelist who had come on to both him and Kaiba at the Kaiba Corp Grand Championship, because she'd only really cared about power, and his power had come from Atem. He knew good and well that fearless, outgoing, charming, charismatic, born leaders were much more attractive to girls than shy, reserved, bland, followers.

That, then, was the real problem here. Téa had liked Atem—_liked _liked him—and now he was gone and Yugi alone was left to serve as a reminder of the person she'd lost. It was a weird situation to be in, caught between one of his closest friends and a spirit who had inhabited his body. And it didn't help that Atem's leaving had been by Yugi's own hand. It was his victory over Atem in the Ceremonial Battle that had allowed the Pharaoh to leave his Millennium Puzzle, body-sharing limbo and go to the spirit world where he belonged. The fact that they all knew he belonged there and not with them did not make it easier on them, least of all on Yugi or Téa. Nevertheless, whatever feelings she had for Atem, whatever awkwardness it created between her and Yugi, she'd been Yugi's friend first and remained one of the most important people in his life, and he wasn't going to let her go without a fight. He was a duelist, after all, even without Atem, and he always fought hard for what was important to him. Atem had taught him that much.

When he reached Téa's house, however, he almost lost his nerve, but steeling himself up (the Pharaoh wouldn't run away from conflict), he knocked on the door. Téa's mother answered.

"Hello, Mrs. Gardner," Yugi said politely. "Is Téa home?"

"Oh, hello Yugi," Mrs. Gardner smiled, opening the door a little wider and motioning him in. "I haven't seen you since you kids got back from that trip to Egypt."

"I know. The last couple months of the school year are always kind of busy, especially since it's senior year," Yugi replied, shuffling his feet. Mrs. Gardner studied him for a moment and he felt very uncomfortable under her scrutiny. What had Téa told her?

After a moment, she smiled at him and said, "Téa's in her room. You can go on up."

"Thank you." Yugi dipped his head to her and slipped out of his boots—_the Pharaoh's boots, _he thought, remembering that he'd never worn anything more adventuresome than sneakers before the Pharaoh had come into his life. Then swallowing hard, he headed upstairs to Téa's room and knocked softly at the closed door. "Téa, it's me."

There was silence from within. Yugi tried again. "Can we talk?"

Another silence, then he heard Téa's voice from inside. "Yeah, Yugi, come on in."

He opened the door and entered Téa's bedroom. She was sitting on her bed, leaning back against the pillows under a large poster of some Broadway musical, her knees pulled up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them. She had already changed out of her horrible pink school uniform and into jeans and a white blouse buttoned only halfway up to reveal a red tank top underneath, but despite the more comfortable clothes, she looked decidedly uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as he felt. At least she smiled at him when he came in.

"Hey, Yugi," she said in quiet greeting.

"Hey," he replied. He looked down at the floor, suddenly feeling Atem's absence more keenly than he had since leaving Egypt. _He _wouldn't have stood here looking at his socks. He would've known what to say. Looking up at her, Yugi made a stab at conversation. "We missed you at lunch."

Now it was her turn to examine her feet, or rather, her knees. "Yeah, I had some stuff…" she trailed off to sort of a mumble and Yugi couldn't make out the rest. Not an auspicious start.

Taking a breath, he crossed over to the bed and sat down at the foot, a respectable distance from her so as not to crowd her space. "Téa, I know you're upset with me for winning the duel and making him leave, but I really want us to still be friends," he said in a rush.

Her head jerked up and she looked at him, her eyes round with surprise. "Oh, Yugi, I'm not upset with you! You had to win the duel, I know that. It was the right thing to do. He belongs there, with his friends and family from the past, from Egypt, not hanging around with a bunch of high school kids in Japan."

"I know. Doesn't make us miss him any less, though, does it?"

She shook her head. "No." She sighed. "You must really miss him. I'm sorry for being such a baby and moping around like it's all about me. This has to be way harder on you."

"No, I understand," he said with a weak smile.

"It's just… complicated."

"I know. But I… I mean, we… all of us… we've missed hanging out with you."

"Yugi, I just… it's kinda hard to deal with, everything that happened in Egypt. I just need a little time to kind of sort through it in my head alone, okay?"

"Yeah, I understand," he repeated, "and I don't mean to be pushy or anything, but I keep thinking about graduation and you going to New York and Tristan going into the army and me going to Egypt, and… we don't really have a lot of time _left_ and I don't want to spend my last couple months in Domino without seeing you."

She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. "Ugh, I know. I _hate _that we're all leaving, I really do. I can't stand the thought of not all being together."

"I know, me neither," he agreed. "But it's kind of exciting, too. You're finally going to _New York _to dance! You've been wanting to do that since, like, forever." He smiled then, remembering the time Téa had first admitted her dream of going to New York to become a dancer. "Remember when Joey and I found out you were working at that restaurant to save up money to go and you got mad because you thought we were going to give away that you were under age? I don't think I ever did get all the ketchup out of my clothes."

Téa laughed along with him. Then she sobered quickly and pulled her head back upright to look at him. "Yugi, what am I going to do without you? All of you," she added sort of hastily.

"Be a famous dancer," Yugi told her earnestly.

She smiled, but her eyes looked a little sad. "Doubtful. I'll be lucky if I get to dance chorus and don't end up waiting tables the rest of my life."

"No, you'll be a star," Yugi disagreed. "Just wait."

She shook her head, then tilted it back to the wall once more. "Arrgh, Yugi, why do you have to make it so hard?'

Now he was confused. "What? What did I do?"

"Nothing. You didn't do anything. It's just… Egypt changed everything and it's hard to figure out how to deal with him being gone, because it's not like a separate friend is gone, but like a part of _you, _but you're still here, so it seems like it should be the same, but it isn't and… ugh, I sound like an idiot."

"No you don't," he said, "I feel exactly the same way, not like I lost a friend, but a part of myself."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he gave her a small smile. "I didn't think anyone else understood. Except… I don't know, I expected to feel different after he was gone, but I don't. So I don't really know how to deal with any of this either."

She nodded. "Yes, that's exactly the problem, see? Everything _seems _the same, but it isn't and I haven't figured out how to deal with that yet, and then you come here and make me laugh like nothing has changed at all and somehow… that makes it harder."

His heart twisted at that. The last thing he wanted to do was to make things harder on her. But there was so little time left to spend with her. "Téa, you're my—" He paused, fishing for the words to complete that sentence. _Best friend _was what he'd started to say, but really it was Joey who filled that role. Téa occupied a different space in his heart, one that was very important but resisted an easy label. "—oldest friend," he finished, lacking a better descriptor. "I know everything's weird because he was sort of a part of me and I remind you of him. I don't want to make things harder for you and I understand why you need space, but I keep thinking there isn't _time. _I don't know how long it will be before I see any of you again after I go and I don't want to lose our last couple months before we all leave. I… I know I don't mean as much to you as he did, but your friendship really means a lot to me and I really don't want this to mess that up."

She suddenly sat up straight, her eyes wide. "Yugi, is that what you think? That he was more important to me than you?"

He shrugged. "It's okay, Téa, I get it."

"Oh no," she moaned softly, shaking her head. "No, that is _so _not true." She leaned her forehead on her hand in self-reproach. "Oh God, Yugi, I am _so _sorry. I've been so unfair to you, acting like he mattered and you didn't." She looked up at him again and he thought she was about to cry, which made him more uncomfortable.

"You haven't been unfair, I know it's all weird," he said quickly, trying to keep her from crying.

"You _don't _know," she insisted. "You… you mean everything to me, Yugi, okay? It _is _weird, and I'm sorry for avoiding you because of it, but you have to know it's not because you're not important to me."

"I know," he tried again. "I get it, Téa, I do. It's okay. It's not a competition, okay? You don't have to prove we're friends. And you haven't done anything wrong. I understand why it's hard for you to be around me. I just… I hope it won't be hard forever."

"No, you don't get it," she repeated, shaking her head. "Oh God, I've made such a mess of everything. No matter what I say, I'll only make it worse." Now she was crying, and Yugi's stomach clenched into a tight ball. He leaned forward and touched her hand, trying to comfort her.

"You haven't made a mess of anything. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it worse for you. Please don't cry. I understand, really I do. I know he meant something different to you than I do. I know everything is weird because… I know you liked him, okay?" There. He'd said it. She liked him; it was pointless to pretend otherwise.

"Oh Yugi," she groaned, "you don't understand at all. I thought I had it worked out in my head, that I could separate you into two distinct people in my heart, the part that was my friend, has always been my friend, and the part that I…" she paused, having trouble getting the words out. "Okay, the part that I thought of as something more, like you said. But then we went to California and you—I mean he—lost that Orichalcos duel and your soul, the part of you that is _you, _was gone and that's when I realized I couldn't do it, I couldn't keep you separate. I knew then that it wasn't just him, it was _you. _Everything's weird because I like _you."_

This stopped him cold and he involuntarily recoiled from her, his hand flying off hers. There was no way he could have heard that right. Téa liked the Pharaoh, not him. Everyone knew it. He was everything Yugi could never be. There was no way in a million years Téa Gardner, who had been his friend since _forever, _could _like _him. Not like _that._

She was shaking now, and she hugged her knees more tightly to stop the trembling. Looking back down at her knees, she added softly, sounding thoroughly miserable, "I can't separate you in my head, Yugi. I can't stop liking you both."

She started talking in a rush then, as if she had to get everything out quickly because he might bolt the room in disgust before she could finish. "Okay, I know how bad that sounds, and I feel so… cheap, like a total tramp to go after two brothers or two friends at the same time, but it's not like that, okay?" She looked up at him, eyes pleading with him to not judge her, but he was too stunned to feel anything at all.

"You have to understand what it's like for the rest of us, okay? You said it felt like a part of you was gone, so you have to understand that to us, to _me, _there's only _you. _There's only Yugi, and Yugi is part this boy I've known forever and part King of Games and he's quiet and gentle and strong and confident all mixed together and even though I _know _some of it is from you and some of it is from him, it's just who _you _are and I… I…" faltered. "I like you, okay? _All _of you. Except then you had to do that stupid Ceremonial Battle and half of you is _gone _and it's like you're not _you _anymore, you're only half you, which I know is a horrible thing to say and probably gets you back to thinking I don't like you the way you are, only with _him, _but that's not how it is, okay? I swear! It… it was the same in California when it was just him and not you, it was awful. I missed you so much I couldn't stand it. But I kept telling myselfyou were coming back. No matter how afraid I got that we'd never see you again, I kept telling myself we'd figure out how to beat Dartz and get you back. And when you did come back, God, I will never forget when you came back and I knew it was _you_. I was never so happy in my whole life. He wasn't _him _without _you _any more than you're _you _without _him._

"Only he's _not_ coming back," she went on, more emotion creeping into her voice with every word, "and I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to be with you anymore when you make me laugh like none of it ever happened and everything's the same as it was before he was ever here, but it _isn't. _I know I have to get used to the fact that you and him are two different people, and I'm trying, I am, but it isn't that easy, and I know everything I'm saying is just making it a thousand times worse and I should've just kept my stupid mouth shut because soon you'll be in Egypt and I'll be in New York so even if everything wasn't so _weird _and it was simple and even if you did like me back it's not like we could do anything about it anyway because we're going to be apart for who knows how long and I just hate myself for this whole thing because you are totally my best friend and I'm completely screwing that up, too. But there was just no way I could let you think he's more important to me than you are, Yugi, because it's _so _not true, and I'd rather you go to Egypt hating me for being so stupid and such a disloyal friend than to think for _one second _that you could _ever_ mean less to me than he does. You mean _everything _to me."

She stopped finally, though Yugi suspected it was more because she'd run out of air than that she'd run out of things to say. He had no idea what to say to her, how to reply to this confession that came so completely out of left field for him. Téa liked _him? _It was utterly inconceivable. But she looked so miserable, so afraid, like she thought he was about to declare her worthless and walk out on her, and nothing could be further from the truth, so he had to say something, anything to comfort her, to let her know…

Let her know what? That he'd had a crush on her for almost as long as he'd known her but that he never _ever _thought it even remotely possible that she could think of him as more than a friend? That the very possibility it might be true had his head spinning? That despite what she said he wasn't sure how much of it was because of the Pharaoh and had nothing whatsoever to do with him?

"Téa," he started, but he didn't have the first clue what else he could say.

"Yugi, I'm so sorry, for everything. I haven't screwed everything up, have I? We can still be friends, can't we?"

"Téa, stop," he said putting his hand out. "Let me catch up, okay? This is… it's a lot to absorb, okay? I had no idea… I…." He paused, shaking his head. Finding out his body played host to an ancient spirit was less surreal than the concept that Téa—_Téa—_could possibly _like _him. "I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about any of this."

She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and took in a shuddering breath. "Yugi, I'm not looking for anything from you, okay? I don't _want _you to say anything; it's all too confused right now. And it wouldn't matter anyway because of Egypt and New York and everything. I just… I just wanted to make sure you knew, really _knew _how much you mean to me. And that we can still be friends."

He looked at her, astonished that she could even question that. It was like asking if he would still like to breathe air. "Téa, we'll _always _be friends. I couldn't live without your friendship. Why do you think I came over here? It's been awful without you. It was bad enough losing Atem, but losing you? That's been the hardest part of the last week. Not that he was gone, but that _you _were."

At this, she flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and sobbing into his shoulders like she had when he'd come back after being lost to the Orichalcos. He was overwhelmed once more, the introvert not knowing what to do with all this excess emotion aimed at him. Even what he'd learned from the Pharaoh didn't help here; though more gregarious than himself, Atem had still been somewhat stoic when it came to emotional displays. Feeling awkward, he put his arms around her and tried to soothe her.

They sat like that a long time, holding each other as she gradually stopped crying. As he held her, he found himself suddenly aware of her in a way he usually didn't allow himself; how her arms felt around him, the feel of her smooth cotton blouse under his fingertips along her back, the fresh and lightly floral smell of her hair and how soft it was against his cheek, the sound of her breathing as it slowly evened out from gasping sobs to something approaching normal. His stomach did a slow tumble and he felt overwhelmed yet again, but when she eventually pulled away, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand once more, he found himself reluctant to let her go.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "You must think I am _such _an idiot."

"No," he said, shaking his head. He had a sudden urge to wipe a tear off her cheek, but suppressed it. That was just not a direction he needed to go, for both of their sakes. They were both too confused and the worst thing he could do would be to muddy the waters further. "I just want things to be okay between us. We've only got a little while left before graduation and I don't want to lose any more time over weirdness. I've missed you, Téa. A _lot."_

She smiled. "Me too." Then she chuckled softly. "I even missed stupid Joey and Tristan. I'm sorry I've been such a… _girl."_

"Please don't apologize anymore, Téa. Just say you'll start hanging out with us again, okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah, of course I will."

They were silent a moment, and he felt awkward again, afraid to look her directly in the eye. After a long pause where they each examined their hands in their respective laps, Yugi said, "I really need to go. I didn't tell Grandpa I was coming over here after school and he wanted me to help around the shop today."

"Okay," she said, getting up from the bed. He got up too and they walked together to the door. "Call me later so we can go over math homework, okay?"

"Yeah, I will," he said. Then standing on tiptoe to make up for the five-inch difference in their heights, he gave her another quick hug. He wanted to say more, something that would somehow put words around what she meant to him, but it was impossible. There were no words big enough, so he settled for telling her, "I'll talk to you later."

"Okay," she said again, then after a pause added, "Thank you, Yugi. Thanks for being my friend."


	2. The Pharaoh's Memories

**2. The Pharaoh's Memories**

It took a couple of days for Téa to get over the embarrassment of what she had confessed to Yugi, but because she, too, felt time pressing in on them, she put it behind her, tried to think of the Pharaoh as a separate friend, one who was gone for good, and to think of how much her friends—all of her friends—meant to her. As promised, she returned to her old routine of spending her time with the three of them. They walked to and from school together, Tristan and Joey scoping out girls along the way while Yugi and Téa made fun of them from behind in stage whispers. They played Duel Monsters (on mats, not with duel disks and holograms and with no one's soul on the line), and generally spent time together hanging out, trying to stave off thoughts of the separate paths they'd be taking after high school.

Graduation was at the end of March and Yugi's mother returned home from one of her frequent trips abroad to celebrate it with him. She stayed for a week, and then left, ushering in the brief period of free time the four of them had together between the end of school and each of them leaving. Tristan would be the first to leave; he was due in boot camp for the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force the first of May. Yugi would be next, joining his grandfather's good friend Professor Arthur Hawkins and the professor's granddaughter, Rebecca, in Cairo three days later. (Téa tried not to think about Rebecca and Yugi living in the same house, reminding herself constantly that despite the fact that the girl genius was a college student, she was still only eleven and not any sort of threat, however much her squeals of "my boyfriend!" grated.) Yugi would be studying Egyptology in an accelerated program that would earn him his bachelor's degree in two years and his master's in four. When he left, Joey would move into his room and start working in Yugi's grandfather's shop. Téa would leave last, heading for New York at the end of May.

By the time Yugi's mother left after graduation, the awkwardness Téa had felt after Egypt had begun to dissolve and she was even beginning to believe that the worst of the weirdness was behind them and that things could be like they used to be, before Duel Monsters was more than just a card game and Yugi was more than just a kid who was good at it.

Two weeks after graduation, Tristan borrowed his mother's car and the four of them packed a huge picnic lunch and drove out of the city to a lovely wooded area beside a small stream. It was a gorgeous day, warm for April, and they ate and laughed together. Yugi and Joey tried to pull out their Duel Monster decks to duel, but Téa grabbed Yugi's deck from his hands, exasperated, and insisted they do something that didn't involve _strategizing_. They threw a Frisbee around for a while, then Téa got bored and left the game, heading for the stream. Pulling her shoes off, she waded into the ankle-deep water, enjoying the feeling of the smooth rocks beneath her feet and the cold water gurgling past her ankles. Eventually the boys got bored with their game, too, and Tristan and Joey started arguing over the leftovers while Yugi came and leaned against a tree trunk at the edge of the stream near her.

"You should take off your boots and enjoy the water," she recommended. "It feels great."

"Nah, I'm fine," Yugi declined. "I go hiking in comfortable shoes, unlike _some _people who still haven't learned," he teased, indicating with a tilt of his head the stylish but somewhat impractical sandals swinging from her hand.

"Huh?" She wrinkled her nose at him, laughing. Yugi could say the weirdest things sometimes.

"You just remind me of when we were in the desert in California, and you were cooling your feet in that stream and complaining that you should've brought better shoes."

Téa smiled, remembering, but then a thought occurred to her and she suddenly felt awkward again. "Hey, wait a second," she rounded on him, half laughing but a little embarrassed, too. "How did you know about that? What do you guys _talk _about?"

Yugi raised his eyebrows in confusion. "What? I didn't talk to anyone about that. Why would I?"

She frowned. "Then how did you know about that?"

He shook his head, bemused. "Uh… 'cause I was there?"

"No you weren't," she argued. How strange.

Yugi cocked his head as if trying to figure out a joke she'd told that he didn't quite understand. "Sure I was. It was when we were trying to find Tristan and Joey again after that train wreck, remember?"

The awkwardness drained out of her in an instant, squeezing her heart. Memories of their trip to California flooded through her in reverse order: the walk though the desert to find Joey and Tristan, which came _after _the weird ghost-duel in that canyon in Death Valley, which came _after _the train wreck, which came _after _they'd left Duke and Rebecca with Professor Hawkins, which came _after _Yugi had snuck off in the middle of the night to duel Rafael. _After _he'd lost to the Orichalcos. _After _Yugi's soul was gone and there was only the Pharaoh. It was the Pharaoh, not Yugi, to whom she'd complained about her shoes. How could he remember the conversation and the train wreck and looking for Joey and Tristan in the desert if he wasn't there? Unless…

She stood very still, like a stone, her eyes wide as she tried to absorb the implications of what he remembered. Could it be possible? Could it be that the Pharaoh was still here? She stared at the boy in front of her, trying to really _see _him. Yugi… Atem… at one point she'd learned to tell the difference between them, though most of the time they were one in her mind. Who was she seeing now? But it couldn't possibly be Atem, not without the Millennium Puzzle. And Atem was gone, she'd _seen _him go herself, absorbed by the light as he walked through the door to the spirit world. Or at least she'd seen _someone _go. But if the person who remembered the stream in the desert and the complaint about her shoes was here, then _who _was gone? Who had been absorbed by the light? She was suddenly very afraid to find out the answer. As much as it had ripped her heart out when Atem had left, it had still been right, but if it hadn't been him, but instead… She couldn't bear follow that train of thought to its conclusion.

"I remember," she said, her voice sounding stilted to her own ears, "but why do _you_?"

He started to get annoyed, as if he thought she was playing a game and he was tired of it. "Téa, what's the _matter _with you? Why are you freaking out over a stupid thing you said a year ago?"

"I didn't say it to _you." _She climbed out of the water and onto the bank, facing him, her shoes hanging limp from her hand.

"Of course you did!" he protested. "In the desert after the train wreck," he repeated.

The train wreck. They'd been stupidly standing on top of the train when it had happened. How they'd survived it, Téa never knew. They'd met up with Weevil Underwood and were dueling like idiots on top of the train. Weevil had somehow managed to get his hands on a Seal of Orichalcos card and had lost the duel and his soul with it moments before the crash. He'd played a horrible joke on them just before the duel had ended, ripping up a card he had claimed was the only way to get Yugi's soul back. Because Yugi was already gone. The Pharaoh had been _furious. _He'd kept his monster attacking Weevil, even after his life points were zero. Even after Weevil's own soul was gone. Five times the Pharaoh had attacked and stopped only when Téa had grabbed him and forced him to stop. Only the Pharaoh could lose himself like that; usually Yugi prevented him from going too far. But Yugi hadn't _been_ there

_So who is here now? _She thought. _Oh, this is all wrong, it's all so _wrong. But there had to be an explanation. Atem had told him the story and he remembered it as if it were his own, the way she sometimes "remembered" childhood stories about herself her parents had told her or that she had seen in family photo albums. If she probed him about what he remembered, he would realize he hadn't been there, that he'd only heard it as a story. "What exactly do you remember about the train wreck?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice from rising.

"I don't know, mostly that we're lucky to be alive being on top of the thing after it went off the tracks. So stupid."

"Yeah, but what were we doing up there?"

"Téa, would you please tell me what's going on? Why are you giving me the third degree and looking at me like I kicked your puppy or something?"

"Just tell me what you remember. Please, it's important." _Please realize you weren't there. If you can't be both of you, please be Yugi._

He sighed. "I was dueling Weevil. All the other people on board had disappeared, so we climbed up on top to try and figure out how to get to the engine to stop the train, but Weevil was up there and he wanted to duel."

"And?"

"And what? We dueled. He had the Orichalcos but I won, he lost his soul, and the train crashed. Téa, why—"

She cut him off. "How did you win? Do you remember how you won? _Why _you won?"

He threw his hands up in surrender. "I don't know. Uh…" he thought about it. "Let's see. I think I played the Berserker Soul magic card, which meant I had to discard my hand and then keep drawing until I got a trap or magic card. Every time I got a monster card, I could attack him with a monster on the field, even if it had already attacked. I kept drawing monsters, so I kept attacking until he lost. Actually, I kept attacking him after he lost, too. You had to stop me. Is that what this is about?"

"No, this is about _why _you remember this at all! Think about it. Do you remember _why_ you kept attacking him?" she asked, feeling panicky. He remembered the events too well, recounted them too exactly….

"Because I was angry. He'd torn up that card, the one he said was the only way to save—"

He stopped short as soon as he'd realized what he was saying, his eyes widening in surprise at his own words. "No, wait, that can't—"

Téa dropped her shoes and took a staggering step backwards away from him. "What have you _done?"_

**

* * *

**

"Wait… no… wait…" Yugi stammered as everything tilted off balance. His world became slippery, something he could no longer grasp. Only when he'd been about to speak of himself in third person had he realized he had not only been recounting a memory not from his own point of view, but from the Pharaoh's, but it hadn't been his memory at all. Téa had been right all along. He hadn't been there. _How can I remember if I wasn't there?_

"What have you _done?" _Téa repeated, her voice louder and higher this time. "Where _is _he?"

For all the strange and astonishing things that Yugi had experienced over the last three years, he had only felt this tenuous a grip on reality once before: when he'd first really understood there was another spirit living inside him. He had been dueling—or more correctly, the Pharaoh had been dueling—his chief rival, Seto Kaiba, at Duelist Kingdom, using Kaiba's very realistic hologram technology. Much had been riding on the duel for both of them. Kaiba's younger brother and Yugi's grandfather had both been trapped in the Shadow Realm, and only the winner of this duel would be able to free his loved one. Yugi was about to win and Kaiba, out of desperation, had stepped to the edge of a long drop where an attack from Yugi's hologram monsters could easily have sent him falling to his death. The Pharaoh, equally desperate, attacked anyway and Yugi almost wasn't able to stop him. It was Téa who had been able to break through, to remind him who he was and that he couldn't take a life to win a duel, not even for his grandfather, and Yugi took control away from his other self. The world had slipped away from him that moment, leaving Yugi unsure of himself and his ability to control what he thought might be a _Yami _or Dark presence inside him.

It was unsettlingly like the duel he had just described to Téa, only he hadn't really been on the train so he couldn't stop the Pharaoh that time—Téa did that alone. But remembering it as if he had been there made reality slip away again. This time, however, it wasn't the fact that there was another presence within him that shook his equilibrium; it was the _lack _of one. There was only him, _only one Yugi Mutou in the world._ The question then had been _who is this presence within me? _The question now was _who am _I?

By now they had caught Tristan and Joey's attention. "What's going on, what's wrong?" Joey asked as he ran over to them, Tristan on his heels.

Yugi barely heard them, his attention on Téa as he tried to regain his mental footing. "Téa, I…"he started, but words were slippery, too.

"Yugi, what's wrong?" Joey asked, alarmed now.

"That's not Yugi," Téa seethed. "It's the Pharaoh."

"No…" Yugi protested, shaking his head. "I'm…" _Who am I?_

Joey and Tristan both stopped short. "What are you _talking _about?" Joey asked.

"She's lost it," Tristan added in almost a whisper.

"I have _not _lost it!" she shouted back. "He just told me every single detail of his duel with Weevil on that train in California like he was there!"

"So?" Tristan asked, but Joey's eyes widened.

"Yugi wasn't on that train."

"What? Of course—" But then Tristan got it too.

"That was after the Orichalcos took his soul," Joey finished unnecessarily.

Now they were all staring at him and Yugi tried again to grasp something solid.

"What happened in that Ceremonial Battle? What happened to Yugi? Did you do this on purpose?" Téa demanded, then her face turned red. "Oh God, all those things I said to you that day at my house. How could you let me think you were him, to say things that were meant for him to hear, not you? How _could _you?"

That accusation broke through the fog somewhat. "WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP!" he shouted, taking all three of them aback. He ran his hand over his spiky hair, trying to think. "I swear, I have no idea how this happened! I don't know why I remember the train, but I'm _not _Atem! I'm not! I'm _me!"_ he insisted. The Ceremonial Battle. "I dueled _against _Atem in the Ceremonial Battle. I _remember _dueling against him."

"Yuge," Joey said, holding his hands up in a conciliatorily gesture and taking a step towards him. "Take it easy, okay? Just explain what's happening here."

"I don't _know _what's happening. I didn't even realize I wasn't on that train when I started talking to Téa about it. I remember it like I _was._ But…." He looked at Joey as another memory hit him. "I wasn't there, I was with _you. _No wait," he amended, "Not yet. You weren't there yet. You lost against Mai later. But later we were together, in those weird bubble things. With Pegasus. I remember _that."_

Joey nodded, then eyed Téa. "He's right, that's what it was like when our souls were taken by the Orichalcos."

"How can you remember being on the train _and _being in Orichalcos-limbo?" Tristan asked. "You can't be in two places at once."

"Unless…" Téa said, much more quiet now, and Yugi couldn't mistake the hope that lit up in her eyes, "unless you're two people."

Yugi grasped that like a life preserver, clung to its familiarity. He'd been two people for so long, that was something he actually understood, something _solid._ He searched inside himself for the familiar presence, the _Yami_ who sometimes was merely the voice over his shoulder, and other times was the driver while Yugi was the one to watch from behind. But there was nothing. No other self. No Pharaoh. No voice over his shoulder or different spirit controlling his moves and his words. There was just him. _Only one Yugi Mutou in the world._

He shook his head. "No, there aren't two of us anymore. He's gone. He's not here anymore. But…" he trailed off, not wanting his mental landscape to get slippery again. His eyes locked on Joey's. "I remember how we became friends, before I finished the Puzzle. You stole one of the pieces and threw it in that canal, but then that scary guy Ushio went after you and Tristan and I stood up for you so later you dove into the canal and got my puzzle piece back for me. _Before _I finished putting it together," he repeated. "_Before _the Pharaoh."

Joey nodded. That was Yugi's memory, not the Pharaoh's.

He turned to Téa. "And I remember when we met, too. I gave you that handheld game, remember? And you got frustrated and broke it and I gave you another one? We were in elementary school. _Years _before the Pharaoh. I _remember."_

For the first time since he'd mentioned her shoes and the train wreck, she relaxed. Her breath rushed out of her as if she'd been holding it a long time, and she nodded, satisfied that he was, in fact, still Yugi Mutou. "Okay," she said, nodding. "But if you're Yugi and there's only one of you, then how do you remember things that you weren't there for?"

He closed his eyes, his brows knit together. "I don't know." He traced other mental footsteps, trying to see where they would lead. He remembered Duelist Kingdom, where he beat Maximillion Pegasus in a Shadow Game by switching control back and forth between himself and the Pharaoh. Pegasus had had his own Millennium Item at the time, the Millennium Eye, which he had been using to read his opponents' minds, but by playing tag team and not revealing their individual moves to each other rather than playing together with the Pharaoh in control and Yugi over his shoulder as they usually did, they were able to foil Pegasus's mind-reading trick. "The Duelist Kingdom finals," he told the others, "when we switched back and forth to beat Pegasus. I remember all of it. I remember what I played, and I remember what my other self played."

There were more times like that, times when Yugi and Atem were distinct from each other. "I remember the Orichalcos duel, the one we lost. It was like with Kaiba at Duelist Kingdom. He wanted to win so badly, he was willing to risk anything, even playing the Orichalcos. I tried to stop him… I remember trying to stop him. And…" he paused, shaking his head in disbelief. "I remember _him _trying to stop _me."_ He opened his eyes and sought out those of his friends. "How can that be? How can I remember playing the card and also trying to stop him from playing the card? How can I remember pushing him out of the circle so the Orichalcos would take _my _soul and also remember _being _pushed out of the circle?" Everything was starting to get slippery again and he reached out, grabbing the tree trunk behind him for support.

"Yugi!" his three friends cried out in unison, then all crowded closer to him.

Joey reached him first. "You all right, pal?" He put his hand on Yugi's shoulder.

Yugi looked up at his friend. "I don't know, Joey, I don't understand this. He's _gone. _I saw him go, we all saw him go. So why do I have his memories? And if I do, what does he have? What if he can't remember us? All that he meant to us and all that we meant to him, what if he doesn't remember because I have all his memories?"

Pain registered on all of their faces. Losing their friend had been hard. The thought that they might as well have never existed to him was unbearable for all of them.

"What about when he left?" Tristan asked, his voice thick. "Do you remember that from both sides too? Do you remember leaving?"

Yugi frowned, thinking again. He remembered approaching the Millennium Stone and surrendering the seven Millennium Items. He remembered Atem being separated from him and facing him in a duel. Yugi looked up sharply at Tristan. "No, I don't. I only remember my side. Dueling him and winning."

He thought back further, to their trip into the Pharaoh's memory world. He could only remember being Yugi there, too. "Everything in Egypt is just me," he said, trying to recall exactly when he stopped being able to remember through Atem's eyes. It was hard to pinpoint because much of their time together they spent merged, both conscious of the events around them. But the entirety of their journey into the Pharaoh's memory world of ancient Egypt he could only remember from his own point of view, nothing from Atem's. Earlier than that, tracing back to the point where Atem's spirit separated from him to go into the past, before Yugi and his friends followed through the Millennium Puzzle, it seemed as if that moment was when he could no longer see through Atem's eyes.

"Everything up until Egypt, when the Pharaoh went into his memory world, I remember both our points of view. Everything _in _the memory world and the Ceremonial Duel, I only remember my own."

They were silent for a moment, the sound of the gurgling stream suddenly loud in Yugi's ears. Joey, his hand still on Yugi's shoulder, squeezed it comfortingly.

Beyond Joey, Téa was standing silent, a pensive expression on her face. "What do you think this means?" she asked when she realized he was looking at her.

"I don't know," Yugi replied. "It doesn't make any sense."

"We should talk to Ishizu," Joey suggested. "If anyone would know, it'd be her."

**

* * *

**

"Well?" Tristan and Joey asked in unison, as Yugi hung up the phone. They both sat up on Yugi's bed where they had been sprawled out, listening to Yugi's half of his telephone conversation with Ishizu, which, unfortunately, had conveyed little information they didn't already know. "Does she know what's going on?"

Téa, seated on the floor nearby, looked up at Yugi expectantly, but said nothing. She was still pondering in her own mind how she felt about this new development._ Because things just weren't confusing enough, _she thought.

"Shh!" Yugi responded, his eyes flicking from Joey and Tristan on the bed to the door of his room. "Do you want Grandpa to hear you?"

Solomon Mutou knew all about he Pharaoh. He had given Yugi the Millennium Puzzle in the first place and had been present for the Ceremonial Battle. However, Yugi hadn't felt like trying to explain yet another strange occurrence, and one that he didn't yet understand, after they had thought everything had been put to rest in Egypt, so he merely told his grandfather that he needed to call Ishizu Ishtar on a matter relating to his upcoming move there. As Ishizu was the Director of the Egyptian Bureau of Archaeology and would be involved in many of Yugi's studies, it wasn't a surprising request. Yugi's grandpa was not unaware, however, of the other expertise Ishizu possessed and Téa suspected he had guessed that the call might be more personal in nature, but he hadn't questioned Yugi about it and had allowed the call.

Joey and Tristan repeated their question, but quieter this time.

Yugi shrugged. "She doesn't understand it, either. According to everything she read about the Ceremonial Battle and all the tasks that had to be accomplished to send Atem back to the spirit world, he and I should be completely separated now. She doesn't know why I have his memories from his time here, but not from Egypt, or what that means for Atem in the spirit world.

"She did remind me that the ancient Egyptians believed in two souls, the _Ba _and the _Ka._ The _Ba_ is like the base power, like Life Points in Duel Monsters. From it comes the _Ka_, which is like a reflection of who someone is or a person's "double." The _Ka_ is born with the body while the _Ba_ sort of pre-exists. The monsters Atem fought in the Memory World came from different people's _Kas._ Remember when we first saw Atem in the Memory World and he was hurt but he got energy back from me, from us? That comes from the _Ba_. People could transfer that energy from one another, like when we support each other as friends. Maybe… maybe somehow when Atem left, he transferred his _Ba _to me and his memories of our time together came with it. But she doesn't know. It's not supposed to work that way." He shrugged again. "But anyway, she's going to do some research with Marik and Odion, though, and will arrange for the three of them to be in Cairo when I arrive in a couple of weeks."

_A couple of weeks, _Téa thought. _It's too soon._ She realized with a wave of melancholy that it felt like Egypt again, like she was losing him all over again.

"Well, that was helpful," Tristan rolled his eyes and flopped back down on the bed.

"I dunno," Joey mused, "maybe it isn't such a big deal. I mean, as long as you're Yugi, does it really matter what you remember? Maybe it's just a nice way for you to remember your time with the Pharaoh."

"It matters to me," Yugi said dully. "Mostly I'm worried about Atem and what he was left with if I have all his memories."

They all gave short "hmms" of agreement. Téa closed her eyes, not wanting to think about Atem not remembering them at all.

"But it's more than that, too," Yugi went on. "It was just so _weird _to be remembering something, to be talking about it with Téa, and then suddenly start thinking about myself in the third person and realize I hadn't been there in the first place, that I was remembering someone else's past. It's like I'm not really _me _anymore, like I'm someone else, and in a completely different way than when I had the Millennium Puzzle. That was weird at first, too, realizing that there was another presence in me, but at least it was distinct from me. I knew who _I _was and who _he _was. But now I'm not so sure. How can I be me and him both?"

"Maybe you always were."

Téa hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud until she noticed they were all looking at her with quizzical expressions.

"Say what? That doesn't make any sense," Joey protested. "How can he have always been himself and the Pharaoh both if the Pharaoh didn't even come to him until he solved the Millennium Puzzle?"

Téa wasn't sure how to answer. She loved her three friends, but talking about this cut too close to home. It would be like laying bare all her ways of trying to reconcile what she felt for Yugi and what she felt for Atem, exposing what she used to believe about them because she'd _wanted _to believe it. Eventually she'd discarded that belief, but had she been right all along? And if she was, didn't Yugi deserve to at least give it some consideration? Swallowing, she said, "Maybe that's just it. Maybe the Pharaoh didn't come _to _him so much as _from_ him."

"What do you mean, Téa?" Yugi asked, his eyes keen with interest.

As she considered what to say next, a thought came to her, something about what Yugi had said about the _Ba _and _Ka_. "Yugi, if the _Ba _is like Life Points, like the basis that everything else comes from, then does that mean when you and Atem shared the same body, you shared the same _Ba?"_

"I don't know," Yugi replied. "It's all very confusing, what comes from where. We were different, and yet the same. Distinct in some ways, but the same in others. I never thought about it in terms of _Ba _and_ Ka, _though."

"But if the _Ba _is the _source_ then you both had to come _from _the same source," she said, talking faster now as she tried to put the pieces together. "Think about it, Yugi. All the carvings of the Pharaoh on the stone tablet look like _you. _Ishizu said he was your past life. And there were others, too, right? Atem's cousin Master Seto, one of the Sacred Guardians, he was Kaiba's past life, and Bakura and Ishizu and even your grandfather all had past selves. But Kaiba in particular, he's so drawn to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, just like Master Seto. Why? Because that was always a part of him. He didn't need a Millennium Item to bring Seto's spirit to him. It was already inside of him. They come from the same _Ba_."

"But Kaiba didn't have the other Seto living as a separate spirit sharing his body for three years," Joey pointed out.

"No, because the Puzzle wasn't his. It was the Pharaoh's and the Pharaoh was reborn in _Yugi."_ She looked at her diminutive friend who somewhere along the way had become larger than life to her. "Yugi, what if we've had the whole thing backwards this whole time?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Taking a breath, she decided she couldn't dance around it anymore. Quietly, she told him, "When we first learned about your other self, I used to think that he came from you and that the Puzzle brought him out of you, but you seemed to think he came _from _the Puzzle and I figured if anyone would know, it would be you. Then with everything that happened and having to surrender the Puzzle and Atem leaving it seemed like you must have been right. But what if I was right all along? What if the Puzzle, instead of bringing him _to_ you actually brought him out _from _you? What if the Pharaoh didn't come to you because you solved the Puzzle, but instead you could solve the Puzzle only because you already _were_ the Pharaoh?"

Yugi shook his head slowly. "No, that's just it, I'm _not _the Pharaoh. I never was and never will be. He's always been everything I'm not."

"But that's not true," Téa protested. "You're different, but you're not. More like… like… two sides of the same coin."

"She might be onto something," Tristan mused.

Joey, however was silent, and Téa noticed him regarding her, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Yugi was still shaking his head. "I don't _feel _like him."

"Don't you remember his feelings as well as his thoughts?" she asked, realizing she was skirting the edge of dangerous territory. She wasn't sure she wanted Yugi to feel Atem's feelings; she was afraid to know what they might have been.

He contemplated this. "I guess." He grew solemn.

"What are you thinking, Yuge?" Joey asked.

"About using the Orichalcos and losing. I can feel what it is like to have made that choice and to know someone I cared about suffered for it."

"You mean yourself?" Joey asked. "'Cause now you're talking about yourself like a separate person."

Yugi nodded. "I remember myself as a separate person then, as both of us, separate. But I don't feel that way now."

"My head hurts," Joey moaned. "I just got used to the idea of two Yugis."

"None of this makes any sense," Tristan agreed.

"It never did, though," Téa said. "Did you ever wonder how, if everyone we saw in ancient Egypt in the Memory World got reincarnated, how could they also have been in the spirit world when Atem joined them? How can Seto from the Sacred Court, for example, be reincarnated in Kaiba and also be in the spirit world? Kaiba was standing with us watching Atem go, and Master Seto was there in the spirit world. But we know that they are connected, that in a sense they are the same person. I think that's what Ishizu means by the _Ba _and the _Ka._"

"But it still doesn't seem like Yugi should be both if we saw Atem go,_"_ Tristan said.

"Okay, now my head _really _hurts," Joey replied.

But Yugi nodded. "It's a paradox. Like the Trinity, three distinct forms of God but only one God."

She smiled, suddenly relieved that he might be on the same wavelength. "Yes, exactly! Two _Kas_, but they come from one _Ba_. Maybe the Puzzle had the Pharaoh's _Ka, _but if it comes from the same _Ba,_ the same source as Yugi's, then they must also be the same. And then when the Shadow Realm was closed and the Millennium Items returned, the part that was unique to Atem, the part that remembered his past life in Egypt, went to the spirit world where he belonged. But the part that he shared with Yugi, all the personality traits that are two sides of the same person, they remain with you, where they belong."

"And Atem's memories? What does he get to keep?" Yugi asked, bringing the discussion back full circle.

Téa deflated. Whatever she might think about Atem's source, she saw him _go_ and if he went without remembering them, without remember her….

"I don't know, Yugi. It's only a theory."

He shrugged. "Maybe you're right, but I don't know. I only know how to think of Atem as my other self, not as _me_. I can't be or do what he was and did."

"I think you're wrong," she replied softly. "You are so much more than you think you are." If nothing else, she was certain of that.

They fell silent once more, reflecting on the theory. At length, Yugi said, "I'll ask Ishizu when I see her. Maybe she'll have some answers then."

The discussion brought to a close by this statement, Tristan got up from the bed from the bed. "We should probably get going. I've gotta get my mom's car back to her before she blows a gasket."

"Yeah. I've gotta start sorting through my stuff to see what I need to bring when I move in here," Joey added. He rose from the bed, stretching his arms, and followed Tristan to the door. "You coming, Téa?"

She shook her head, not wanting to leave Yugi yet. "I don't have to be home for a while, so I'm going to stay a bit longer, if that's okay with you, Yugi. I can walk home."

Yugi smiled at her. "Sure, that's fine. I'll walk you home."

Joey's eyes narrowed. "You should get your picnic basket out of Tristan's car before we leave, though," he said, and Téa thought he sounded a bit pointed.

"That's okay, I can get it from Tristan later."

"No, you should get it now," Joey insisted, pulling her up off the floor by the hand.

"I'll go down with you guys," Yugi volunteered, getting to his feet as well.

"Nah, don't bother, Yuge," Joey said hastily, bustling them all out the door. "You take it easy. Téa'll be right back."

When they were out of the room and headed down the stairs into the game shop, Téa pulled her arm free from Joey's grasp in a huff. "Joey, what's the matter with you, what's the big deal about the basket? I can get it from Tristan tomorrow."

"I don't care about the basket, I just wanna talk with you a minute."

"What?" she asked.

He shook his head. "When we get outside."

They grabbed their shoes off the landing then headed downstairs into the shop, waving good-bye to Yugi's grandfather. Téa called out to him that she would be coming right back in and then they went outside to where Tristan's car was parked and he retrieved the picnic basket while Joey pulled Téa to the side, away from the door of the shop.

"Okay, what?" she asked, annoyed.

"I just want you to give him a break, okay? This has gotta be really weird for him, and he doesn't need you being pushy and deciding for him what it means."

"I am _not _pushy," she insisted.

Tristan, who was standing near the car with her picnic basket, coughed and she glared at him. He looked away, pretending he wasn't listening.

"You _are _pushy, which is actually a good thing, because you usually push us in the direction we need to go," Joey countered, "but this time he needs to figure it out for himself, not based on what you _want _it to mean."

She folded her arms. "What's _that _supposed to mean?"

"It means that no matter how much you want Atem to still be here, it's _Yugi _who has to figure out who he is."

Now she was angry. "You listen here, Joey Wheeler, don't you dare lecture me about Yugi! You might be his best friend, but I've been his friend longer than you, and way before the Puzzle, too. If you think for one second I would put Atem over Yugi…" She shook her head, incensed. "Why do you think I was freaking out when he started remembering stuff Yugi wasn't there for? Because it would be awful if the Pharaoh was still be here and Yugi was gone!"

"But you'd really like it if they were _both_ still here, wouldn't you?"

"Of course, wouldn't you?"

He sighed. "Yeah, probably. But my feelings aren't likely to cloud the issue for Yugi."

She felt her face get hot. "And what exactly do you mean by _that?" _she challenged, glaring at him.

"I think you know," he replied, meeting her gaze evenly.

"This is none of your business, Joey Wheeler!" she fumed when he wouldn't back down.

"It is, though, Téa. Because I love both of you and right now this isn't about _you._ You know Yugi, he'd sell his soul for any one of his friends. Heck, he _has _given up his soul for his friends. And he would do _anything_ for you." Téa's stomach did a slow roll at that statement. "On this, though, he needs to not make this be what _you_ want it to be just to make _you_ happy."

Her shoulders slumped and she looked down at her feet, conceding the battle of wills. _Since when did Joey Wheeler go from being a wiseguy to actually being wise?_ she wondered. She suspected the answer lay somewhere between Battle City and California and a certain leggy blonde duelist. She sighed, then met his gaze once more. "Joey, he is my friend and in a couple of weeks he's leaving. I just want to be there for him, same as you. I'm not going to tell him what to think, and I don't want him to be anything other than who he is."

He nodded, then backed away, satisfied. Tristan, who had been standing close enough to them to listen but far enough away to not get involved, came over and handed her the basket. "We'll call you tomorrow, okay?" he said.

She took the basket from him and nodded. Joey then stepped back over to her and gave her a hug. "I love you," he told her, then got into Tristan's car, leaving Téa to wonder again when exactly Joey Wheeler had grown up.

**

* * *

**

Yugi was sitting on the couch in front of the TV in his room, aimlessly flipping through channels when Téa returned, carrying her picnic basket. She put it down on the floor and flopped onto the couch beside him.

"So what was that all about?" he asked her.

Téa's face flushed slightly. "Nothing. Joey's just being protective of you and doesn't want me strong-arming you into accepting my theory of why you remember things from the Pharaoh's perspective." She wrinkled her nose. "He thinks I'm pushy."

Yugi couldn't help but smile at that.

"And just what are you smiling at, Yugi Mutou?"

He sobered quickly. "Nothing."

But she smiled back. "Okay, so I'm pushy." She leaned back against the back of the couch and propped her legs up on the table in front of her. "So what are we watching?"

"Nothing, I was just channel surfing."

She wrinkled her nose again. "Ugh. Such a _guy _thing." She took the remote from him and flipped it off, then turned her head to face him.

"Yugi, I'm sorry I freaked out today. It just completely threw me and it was like the Orichalcos all over again. I thought… I don't know what I thought. I thought maybe the spirit world took the wrong person."

"I know. It freaked me out, too."

"You okay?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that. It wasn't like anything terrible had happened. It was just confusing, and on top of the other confusion from his earlier discussion with Téa, it was just a bit much.

When he didn't answer, she gave a short nod, as if she'd read his mind. "Doesn't help that it's all coming on top of what I unloaded on you before graduation."

He felt his cheeks burn. "No, it's not that. I'm just a little sick of everything in my life being complicated. I love paradoxes and all; they're just another kind of game. Except… this is my life and I'm tired of it being a _game._"

"I'll bet." She pulled her legs back off the table and tucked them under her so she could face him more fully. "Listen, Yugi, don't worry about any of the stuff I said, okay? Not the stuff before graduation or the stuff I said today. You have to figure out for yourself who you are, and what I want or anyone else wants doesn't matter. Because all I really want is for you to be happy and for you to know I'm always here for you."

"I know you are. You've always been there for me," he told her, his throat suddenly feeling tight. "You've always been the one to help me remember who I am. I just hate that I need you so much to remind me."

She put a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Yugi, it's okay to take time to figure it out. You don't have to do it overnight. You have time. After all, you're not quite eighteen yet. Lots of eighteen-year-olds have identity crises, and you have more reason than most." She rolled her eyes and gave him a crooked grin. "Heck, if my dad is any indication, you get to have another one when you're forty."

He chuckled at that before becoming serious once more. Over the lump that was forming in his throat, he asked, "Téa, what am I going to do without you when I go to Egypt?"

"E-mail me every day, I hope?" she tried to laugh, but he could tell her eyes were getting misty.

"Three times a day at least," he assured her. "At least until you become too big a star to have time for the little people. The _really _little people," he said with a self-deprecating grin.

She laughed at that. "No way. You're the one who won't have time for me. You'll discover some ancient pharaoh—I mean, one that is completely paradox-free—and they'll name some archaeological site after you or something."

"You'll have groupies," he countered. "Joey and Tristan and I won't be able to get anywhere near you."

"You _already _have groupies," she shot back. "Duel Monster groupies. Why do you think Kaiba is so jealous of you? They used to be _his _groupies."

Yugi rolled his eyes at this. "Yeah, riiiiiight. I'm such a threat to a six-foot-tall, twenty-year-old billionaire."

"You are! King of Games."

"Prima Ballerina."

"Okay, I give up!" she laughed. "Hey, speaking of Duel Monsters, are you going to have time to play once you leave? Kaiba will have kittens if you quit the tournament circuit before he has a chance to beat you. Not that he'll _ever _beat you, not in this lifetime."

He shrugged. "I don't know. Rebecca will be there, so I'll have someone to practice with, and I think Bakura is planning on coming to Cairo in a few months, too, but I don't know about tournaments."

"We should make a pact, then," she said. "You and me and Tristan and Joey. We'll pick a Duel Monsters tournament, like a year from now, and no matter what, we'll all be there. That's how we'll make sure we never lose contact."

"We won't lose contact," he insisted, feeling melancholy creep back in. "We'll visit each other. I'll come and see you in a show, we'll both come back to Domino for Christmas or something."

"I know, but I wanna do this, too. You and Joey pick a tournament and Tristan and I will come to watch and we'll do that every year, no matter what. Deal?" She held out her hand for him to shake.

He smiled once more, pushing back the sadness once more. "I think that's a great idea," he replied, taking her hand and shaking it. "Then we'll all see each other a few times every year. No matter what."

**

* * *

**

A little over two weeks later, he was gone. It would be two years before he saw any of them again.

**

* * *

**

_Continued in Part One: The Tournament_


End file.
